New ‘Predator’ by ‘Iron Man 3′ Director Shane Black in the Works [Updated]

Movie remakes and reboots are (unfortunately) a standard part of the business these days – and it seems like no property is too sacred to be meddled with. And yet, after years of some lackluster reboot films, we have, admittedly, seen more and more reboots that actually manage to follow our rules for redux success, offering a different or exciting spin on a property we thought we knew. 21 Jump Street, Dredd and Rise of the Planet of the Apes are examples of some recent reboots that managed to justify their recycling of old intellectual properties – with films like The Equalizer and Terminator Genesis offering at least the hope that future reboots will be just as worthwhile.

…Then again, there are plenty of reboots that fail for one reason or another (Dredd), and there are also films that we consider SO sacred that they should not be meddled with at all. In that latter category we would place classic films like Casablanca or The Godfather – but also an action movie classic like Predator. Now, much to our collective horror, it’s being reported that Predator is indeed getting a reboot (a bullet we thought we dodged last year), with the story being crafted by none other than Iron Man 3 director, Shane Black.

THR dropped the news that 21st Century Fox has tapped Black to reboot Predator. To be specific, Black will handle the treatment for the project, and then hand actual scripting duties to Fred Dekker, who is best known for writing/directing late ’80s/early ’90s cult films like Robocop 3 and The Monster Squad – which itself was almost remade a few years back. Black and Dekker (the Hollywood guys, not the tool parts company) have strong collaboration history; they co-wrote Monster Squad together, which has got to count for something (and does, at least in our book). On his own, Black has history with the Predator franchise: it’s a not-so-secret story that as young screenwriting prodigy (Lethal Weapon), he was given a small role in the original 1987film as attempted bribery for him to polish the script. (See him in the cast photo below standing behind Schwarzenegger’s right side.)

Scene from the 2010 reboot, ‘Predators’

No details yet on exactly how the studio plans to reboot the franchise – but it certainly is a looming question. After two installments in the late ’80s era (touching 1990, if we’re getting technical) – and slogging through Aliens vs. Predator films during the early to mid-2000s – the Predator franchise got its best shot at new life with the Robert Rodriguez-produced Predatorsin 2010. That film was supposed to be a hard reboot of the franchise, and soon after its modest reception ($127 million worldwide on a $40 million budget) there was serious talk of a Predators sequel. Four years later and it’s obvious that Predators 2 lost all momentum – so what’s the game plan to make this Shane Black reboot more enticing?

With Black teaming with another ’80s/90s veteran – not to mention John Davis, a producer on the original film – it seems that this time, there’s going to be an attempt to recapture the nostalgia of the first film. Does that mean bringing back Arnold Schwarzenegger in some capacity? Wouldn’t be surprised if it did. Beyond that, a Christmas setting is about the only bet we can make right now (Black loves to set his films during the holidays).

After Iron Man 3, however, there is going to be no end to the barrage of jokes fans are going to toss at this new Predator project. For as much money as IM3 made, hardcore fans were less than thrilled with some of the… “liberties” that Black took with the material. “So what, we going to find out that the Predator wasn’t a REAL alien – just a junky English actor in a body suit?” Yep, we can already hear the jokes spreading across the Interwebs…

Bottom line, though: Predator is one of the last movies from my younger years that I still carve out time to watch nearly every time I catch it on TV. For nearly all of my thirty-two years of life, it’s been there to bring me entertainment and pleasure on some of the most dreary, lazy, sickly, or boring days. Never once have I wished to have an updated version to replace the jungle misadventures of Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Bill Duke, Jesse Ventura, Sonny Landham, Richard Chaves and Kevin Peter Hall in the Predator suit – and I’m probably not alone in saying that I haven’t started wishing for that change in recent years. In my eyes, this reboot is facing a steep uphill climb to relevancy and/or appreciation.

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azimiq 9 months ago

I thought Predators was a reboot. That being said, why reboot? Why not another sequel? Does Predator need an origin story now?

The reason for the reboots and sequels? Easy money. Writers and producers do not have to come up with anything original but audiences are familiar with the story and it liked it. They use the first successful movies, tweak it here and there, put it in the multiplexes and watch the amounts roll in (they hope). You would think the duds that resulted with this formula would have studios proceed with caution; but those who greenlight projects act like Vegas gamblers and think luck will always be on their side. Bottom line – until a studio’s quarterly report shows reboots and sequels result in continuous major loses for it, they will keep cranking them out.

You keep using words like “studios” and “writers/producers” but what you should be using is “audiences”. Do some research on which movies made the most money in the last few years. I’ll tell you one thing – Pacific Rim didn’t hold a candle to all those uninspired sequels and remakes. If people didn’t want to see them, studios wouldn’t want to keep making them.

I liked Predator for the most part. I have all the predator films, Alien films, and spin-offs on DVD, so I would undoubtably add this one as well. having said that, however, we probably don’t really need another one, at least a reboot. A sequel would probably be good enough. I wonder what happened to Doc savage, though? I thought Black was supposed to be working on that, and I would prefer to see him do that before getting involved in anything else. One note, though: after the mess he was primarily responsible form that they made out of iron man #3, I am not sure he is the one to trust with a Doc Savage film. he has alot of redemption owed and alot to prove.

Update: Comicbookmovie site just reported that Shane Black’s Doc Savage is currently still very much alive with the idea of a Doc movie set in the 30s (a good thing), and will have the Fab Five and also possibly his cousin Pat in the film (also a good thing). Black is apparently broaching the subject of Chris H. who played Thor playing the lead as Doc. I like Hemsworth, he’s a good actor, but not sure he is the right guy for the job. The actor should look exactly (!!) like the James Bama bantam Book cover illustrations to start off with, and then any actors meeting that criterea should them be checked out to see if they can act. We need someone we can recognize for the part.

man, you truly have to be the most annoying individual I have ever come across on the internet (yes, I know, that is saying something). I mean, anytime someone disagrees with your viewpoint, you belittle them. Please, Dazz, you grumpy old whiner, go find a dictionary, and look up the definition of “opinion.” it’s getting old seeing you insult someone who doesn’t share your opinion.

They really don’t need a reboot at all. They could create an original story set in the same world. You could argue that Predators is set in the same universe as Predator and Predator 2. Even AVP 1 and 2 can still exist along side the other movies. Just have an expanded universe with movies that can stand alone on there own, but could cross over if needs be. Imagine a cameo from Arnie or Danny Glover.

Only sequel. No reboot. Not by any chance. You know what? F-you Shane Black! Black is my Frank Miller, the man I respected in his early years and prime and the hack that I now despise. I hope this crash and burns and everybody forgets about it like Total Recal, Conan, Robocop reboots.

this is one of the few times I’m not mad that fox has the rights to x-men….

technically they could do it… The easiest way to do it would be a danger room sequence with Wolverine in the next x-men movie. I think everyone would lose their minds for that 2-3 minutes even if the rest of the movie is convoluted trash.

Not a fresh idea, actually, but a pretty dumb one unless you like clashing film tones/universes for the sake of seeing two popular characters out of their realm fighting each other. Maybe Fox can do a Predator vs The Planet of the Apes after that or Predator vs. The Nave from Avatar.

I’d rather another AvP movie with the Engineers thrown in to confuse the hell out of everyone. This would be more intriguing but not perfect compared to Predators/Survivor game show with Topher Grace was not very good for its premise. Speaking of Topher his career pretty dissolved into nothing, didn’t it?

Funny thing is that the AVP franchise was never intended by Ridley Scott to be part of his aliens mythos. Him and James Cameron wanted to make a proper alien sequel until Fox decided to go ahead with the first AVP film. As for Topher, funny how both the audience and the film itself poked fun at how out of place he was in the movie.

He was an excellent curve-ball thrown into the cast of hard hitters. Funny that Big_Boss doesn’t realize the movie mentions how out of place he was because that’s the point it is setting up with his character.

remember the predator is actually going to be an ape in a Halloween costume and the real villain will be some guy the protagonist talked to once 13 years ago with lame powers who is not defeated by the protagonist but the so of the protagonist also it will take place during christmas

I read an article that said he was mad when he did that part, because he wanted to have to Predator doing some martial arts moves, kicks and stuff, and the directors and writers said, no that isn’t what this monster does. Just have him do the Predator sci-fi movie monster stunts like we wrote it and that is it. So Van Damme said a few words that sounded like his name and was fuming the whole while.

OK, so does anyone have a criticism of Shane Black that doesn’t have anything to do with their anger over Iron Man 3?

Bearing in mind that said anger has nothing at all to do with the quality of the film, widely considered to be one of the most entertaining of the Marvel movies, but is purely based on the decision to rewrite one fictional villain. And for this, Shane Black is personally blamed for offending fans – even though it was clearly signed off by Marvel… hilarious.

But never mind everybody. You just go right ahead and keep posting the same “witty” comments about the IM3 twist without bothering to notice that 50 people have already done the same thing AND IT WAS IN THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE… Ah, the internet.

Back on topic, Black is as good a choice as any to direct a reboot or sequel if it really has to happen. But sadly whatever director is chosen, what will ruin the film is the inevitable studio decision to go for the lowest rating possible to maximise audiences – the curse of modern action and horror.

I don’t see why they’d need to reboot. “Predators” clearly was *not* a reboot, it was a sequel, but it only sequeled the first film, ignoring all the AvP and P2 stuff. Considering that Earthly authorities are hiding all the Alien and Predator stuff (like at the end of AvP2, and throughout P2) everything still fits together, if you consider that everything is classified, so people only get glimpses of what happened, and no shared characters through any of the movies.

Another sequel, whether in the vein of Predators, or Predator, can easily fit, while still being different and fresh, because of the confidentiality around the events of all the other Predator occurances on Earth.

If they make AvP3, they’ll have multiple “trilogies” (P1,P2,Ps/AvP1,AvP2,AvP3/A1,A2,A3,A4/Prometheus,Prometheus2)

Hollywood is stuck on this reboot idea for some reason. The Predator idea really does not need to be rebooted because it is still pretty open-ended and there is not really a lot that has been revealed about them in the films aside from the crazy alien gods angle in AVP 1 (which should be forgotten).

Just write a decent script revolving around the basic concept and try not to gimmick it to death, the base of the concept is out there enough on it’s own.

Why does it have to be a reboot and what exactly are they rebooting? It has been established that there are a planet full of the Predators and why they travel to hunt has been explained. If they do another movie it will just be a similar set-up to all the other films, there really is not any need to start anything over with this concept. Movie makers just seem to use the reboot label for the hell of it at this point.

“Black and Dekker (the Hollywood guys, not the tool parts company)” sorry, but after reading this line, I had to go to the bathroom to laugh my pants off. Thank you, Mr. Outlaw for making my day at the office a little bit brighter.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I AM SO F-ING HAPPYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As long as its a sequel I am in. I hope to see Adrian Brody, Danny Glover, and Arnold return, and maybe the chick from the second film would be cool to see where the characters ended up. I also hope to see Female Predators and a lot of new ideas threw in. would be cool to see Female Engineers in the next Prometheus sequel too. All in all I just want a great new story.

They hunt and cultivate them for a challenge/sport in wild game hunting, that wouldn’t work, their motivations and folly aren’t that different from the engineers, all that can be said (almost, not official) is the Engineers created all 3 since predator 2 cannon contained a xenomorph skull.